As of late-

Am I surviving the crazy schedule? I would have to say yes. I reach Fridays and so want to hit happy hour with friends or go home and cuddle up with the pups, but I keep moving forward. As of now I am dropping the college class at one school and picking up more at the other so then I don't have to work Fridays. Plus the other school is getting rid of my time slot so I cant teach there next semester- maybe this summer.

How is it going? I'm tired. I don't work out too much because my feet and legs are so tired from bein on them all day. BUT I have not been sick at all this semester (knock on wood) and I work so hard during the week that I try to play during the weekend. I had a girls night in a few weekends back, and I went to a wine festival with some friends that same weekend. I try to make time for friends, the dogs, and Shane on my weekends, and of course time for myself. I have a good friend from work who puts puzzles together, glues them, and places them in frames around his home. I thought that would be neat to do for the little ones in my life. I have completed three puzzles thus far and I have 3 more to go. I started a good book a friend gave me to check out. I try to enjoy the outdoors with Chloe while we still have nice days.

It got really hectic around the end of the quarter because we had an all day meeting at work, I had grades to get done, and 5 set of tests to grade. It was stressful, but I catch up and I am fine. I was carrying a lot of stress in my neck and getting headaches on a daily basis bt a friend of mine is a PT and she gave me some exercises to do and the woman is a saint. I had a migraine today, but not from stress, other than that I went 5 days without a migraine. That may be no big deal to some, but huge deal to me.

People ask me which do I like better, college or high school. Honestly I love them both. I love the interaction and the impact I have on high school kids, though some days I think I fool myself ino thinking I actually make a difference. I love the maturity and appreciation of the college students. The college students appreciate my style of teaching and let me know. They also dont tattle and are quiet when I ask them to be. The high school students are disrespectful and parents love to blame teachers. I have this Calculus class I teach that is more of a pain than anything. They are smart kids, but they think little of themselves and love to blame me for their failures. I ahve parents contacting me, pretty much telling me I am not very good at one I do because I am promoting failure in my class. Some people say, well they are parents, of course they are going to protect their kid. But, when I was in school, the teacher was right. My mom gave me no sympathy if I had issues with a teacher- I had to deal with it myself. Now I have student running to parents and parents coming to me accusing me instead of asking how to help and what is wrong. Our society has changed so much. It worries me about becoming a parent some day, but I keep the hope that I learn from the mistakes of the parents of my students. Okay- lets see, this year, I have also been told how much my calc students hate my class, and I have been criticized by another teacher for how I teach my students. I also had a teacher tell one of my students they can't believe she likes me because most students dont like me. Do you think I am a horrible teacher yet? The funny thing is I am actually a good teacher. This year I have been sabotaged. My lower level kids love me- I had a student tell me on Friday that I was absolutely amazing- she made my day! This week though I was threatened by another student not in my class- she was going to have her gangsta brother take care of me- he was a blood and I was a snitch who needed to be taken care of. Oh, but I do have a funny story- my students were telling me I look younger than I am and I said thats because I use beauty cream. This boy in my class thought I said pretty cream and said his mom could use some. :) Too funny- I told him I was going to call his mom and tell her he said that- he said no worries, he tells her everything. :)

At the college, all is well for the most part. I have studnets mad because they are not passing, and I have students who want me to teach the next course level and want to enroll in it already. I had this other instructor yell at me because i went to the dept chair to get help because he did not return my e-mail- who was I to go to the dept chair and not contact him more. I told him there is a handy button called reply that we use to tell people we will get back to them. He should try using it.

And last but not least- who is tired of this election? As a teacher I tell my students to be respectful of one another and use only positive comments- all I see on TV is negative advertisement toward other candidates. When is someone going to run for an official position and say we need better role models for our youth and that is what I am going to be- I am going to put together such a strong campaign for myself that negative ads are not needed. I feel like the TV contradicts what I am trying to teach my students and the behvior I wish they would model. Why should they- even our future presidents cant stop bashing one another. I hate this time of the year because of that. Why do politicians even make promises- you cant promise anything. You have to pick up the broken pieces left behind you and try to glue it back together. Some pieces are missing and some refuse to go back. Times changes and there are no promises. Why not say these are rough times and we need to make a change, but we also need to deal with what we have in front of us. We need to make changes but we need to talk with the people on the front line to see what is really best in stead of making asusmptions. What do the soldiers think? What do he teachers think? What do the elderly think? Why let someone who is clearly separate from the problem make a decision that impacts millions- should we talk to the people amidst the problems and see what needs to be done?

What I hate is people want to give teachers bonuses because we arent paid enough. How do we decide that- lets look at students test scores. Let me tell you something, if you looked at my student test scores I would get $30000. They might even fire me. I teach pre-algebra. I'm good at it, but I teach kids who dont care. I teach the kids who arent motivated. You could test them and with no incentive to them they see a test they really dont need in life so they bomb it and because they bomb it I suck at being a teacher. I was asked today, how do you decide who gets a raise being a teacher? I honestly think English and math teachers are the hardest working teacherson this planet ( at the high school level). I have to get kids to pass standards, be proficient on tests they dont care about, get good scores on the ACT/SAT/ and AP exams- if they dont they cant get into a good college. I work endless hours finding ways to motivate my lower level kids, get my high end kids to stop being so negative, adapting new practices, keeping all kids on the same track but making sure I am not moving too slow, grading papers, making up tests/projects, and worrying about kids and what they have to go home to. How do you measure success when you work so hard and your kids have come along way, btu theres no way to tell how far they have come? I dont want people to look at my test scores, if you do that most teachers will only teach the high end students who are already motivated and care about those tests you give them. Who loses out then? The lower kids who really need the good teachers to work with them. Sure I ant to make more money, but hurting kids in the process is not what we need. If we let all the smart kids go to one school and give all of our money to that school then those kids will be smart- they have the resources and the good teachers. The poor schools are filled with parents who dont care and teachers who are there because they couldnt get into the good schools. Who loses there?

Do I hear it yet??? Krista for President! Yeah right! Thats a scarey thought- I can barely decide what to make for dinner.

So this all has been brewing for quite some time so I thought I would let it out.